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Game critics hail Sony PSP device, 'Donkey Kong'

By Gina Keating, Reuters

LOS ANGELES  Video game critics Tuesday honored Sony's upcoming handheld game device, the PlayStation Portable, and the latest iteration of the legendary Donkey Kong franchise as products likely to bring gaming back to players who have turned away from the joystick.

The critics voted Sony's sleek mobile gaming device, the PSP, set to hit stores early next year, as "Best in Show" at the 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles, the industry's major trade show.

"Sony did really well to age-up its audience, (and to) appeal to people over 18," said Geoff Keighley, co-chairman of the Game Critics Awards. "PSPs will be as hip as iPods for people in their 20s and 30s who haven't experienced portable gaming."

Keighley said critics, from 35 publications that review games, felt special admiration this year for products that appealed to what is believed to be the new frontier in gaming — grown-ups.

"I think companies have realized they can get great sales when they have products that don't feel like they were made for adolescents," he said.

On the other hand, the critics chose Nintendo's "brilliantly simple" title Donkey Kong Jungle Beat— played on a set of bongo drums that control the titular ape — as the show's best original game.

Critics called the game a "gateway drug" that would pull millions of players back to Nintendo, originator of the 1981 Donkey Kong game featuring a barrel-hopping ape, a plumber and a damsel in distress.

The world's largest video game publisher, Electronic Arts Inc. took away five critics' awards from E3 — more than any other publisher — after being much nominated but overlooked last year.

EA won acclaim for The Sims 2, Def Jam: Fight for New York, Burnout 3, Madden NFL 2005, and Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth.

"Their biggest challenge is getting critical acclaim for their games that sell really well but don't get recognized," Keighley said. "They are starting to deliver on what gamers want in a way they haven't before."

The most critically celebrated games were Microsoft's Halo 2 and Ubisoft Montreal's Splinter Cell 3, each sweeping three categories.

Keighley predicted that the release of Halo 2, an alien invasion follow-up to the game that launched the Xbox would rival that of Take-Two Interactive Software's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, due out in October.

"It's really going to be quite huge," he said.

Activision, with six nominations, and Vivendi Universal Games, with five nominations, were shut out in the final awards.